Putin critic who warned he was on Russian hit list was murdered, London police say

The Russian political exile Nikolai Glushkov was found dead in London on Monday night.

The British police say he was murdered, killed by compression to the neck.

The 69-year-old previously said he was on a Kremlin hit list.

The Russian exile opposed to Russian President Vladimir Putin who was found dead in London early this week was murdered, the British police say.

Nikolai Glushkov, 69, was found dead at his house in southwest London at about 10:46 p.m. on Monday. A subsequent pathologist report found that Glushkov died by a "compression to the neck," London's Metropolitan Police said on Friday.

Glushkov was best known for being a close associate of the Russian oligarch and prominent Putin critic Boris Berezovsky, who was found dead on the bathroom floor of his ex-wife's house in Ascot, southeast England, in 2013.

A police forensic officer outside Glushkov's house in New Malden, southwest London, on Wednesday. Matt Dunham/AP

Glushkov was granted asylum in the UK in 2010. The Russian national previously worked at Berezovsky's car company LogoVaz and the Russian state airline Aeroflot, from which he was convicted of stealing $100 million last year.

He had been expected in commercial court on the morning of his death to defend a claim made against him by Aeroflot. An unidentified friend told The Guardian that Glushkov "had been getting ready for this for months."

British counterterrorism officers are leading the investigation "as a precaution" because of Glushkov's associations.